Creative uses for the shrink item spell

[Dalebert]

My other thread about acid sling bullets made me think of these. Curious of any ideas you folks have.

Remember, the duration is 1 day per level, so some of the best uses don't require you to have the spell prepared. You can shrink things in between adventures to have handy. The spell effect can be ended by tossing onto any surface or by speaking a command phrase.

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Shrink a very large piece of meat, possibly from a recently killed animal or a create food and water spell. Have your cleric cast purify food and water on it every day. Get an enemy to eat it. Speak command phrase.

Shrink an iron spike. Stick the tiny needle inside a lock. Say the command phrase to end the spell. You can prepare a bunch of these ahead of time and keep them handy. Alternatively, encase it in wax and convince someone it's a magic ear plug that answers questions, translates languages, or protects from sonic attacks. It would radiate magic.

Have some giant iron spikes made. Shrink them. Pound them into things like stubborn doors or into fissures in rocks, or between two big rocks you're trying to move. Reverse. Alternatively, get any large basically wedge-shaped object and shrink it. Wedge it into place to move heavy things.

Have 16 times normal size throwing daggers made. You get the idea.

[Curmudgeon]

Pretty much everything you've proposed assumes capabilities not stated in the spell. There's no stipulation that objects can cause any damage from the process of returning to normal size.

Spells do what they say they do, and nothing more.


Now, a shrunken boulder can be easily thrown to hit a ceiling. It'll expand to normal size when it hits and drop with a lot of weight. That falling object will miss if the creature below makes a DC 15 Reflex save, but if they fail they can take a lot of damage (depending on the weight).

[Dalebert]

Pretty much everything you've proposed assumes capabilities not stated in the spell. There's no stipulation that objects can cause any damage from the process of returning to normal size.

Spells do what they say they do, and nothing more.

I understand that to some reasonable extent, like that fireball doesn't directly set things on fire, but this is a physical alteration of the objective world that has normal ramifications. Applying that logic here is like saying if I disintegrate a bridge someone is standing on, they will not fall. That interpretation is contradicted by enlarge person (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/enlargePerson.htm) which bothers to explicitly state:


If insufficient room is available for the desired growth, the creature attains the maximum possible size and may make a Strength check (using its increased Strength) to burst any enclosures in the process. If it fails, it is constrained without harm by the materials enclosing it— the spell cannot be used to crush a creature by increasing its size.

And that text is not in reduce person. Are we to assume that if a creature is shrunk and then ends up in a very small space at the end of the duration, the magic is at least partially continued indefinitely until they leave that space?

[hymer]

Keeping a small/big piece of rock in your pocket (or in the rogue's pocket) can be useful in many ways. Put it up front in someone's boat, chariot or other vehicle and make it back to normal. Or put it in front of a door and return it to normal. You can drill a hole in it and use it as an anchor (again for boats, or for tying/chaining people to it, especially flying people or creatures). If your DM is so inclined, have the rogue sling it at someone and you can ready a return to normal size. Use it as a small, portable wall for breaking line of effect as needed.

[bekeleven]

When playing aquatic creatures with Air Breathing, I have an anti-dispel Lake Cape.

[Dalebert]

When playing aquatic creatures with Air Breathing, I have an anti-dispel Lake Cape.

I'm getting that you shrank some water and converted it to cloth form, but what exactly? Did you build a little tub, fill it up, and shrink that so you can get in it and soak? What caster level are we talking because it's only 2 cu ft / lvl. A 5x5 pool 1 foot deep would be like a baby pool and that would take about a 12th level caster. Still, it might be enough so you could breathe.

[bekeleven]

I'm getting that you shrank some water and converted it to cloth form, but what exactly? Did you build a little tub, fill it up, and shrink that so you can get in it and soak? What caster level are we talking because it's only 2 cu ft / lvl. A 5x5 pool 1 foot deep would be like a baby pool and that would take about a 12th level caster. Still, it might be enough so you could breathe.

One of the annoyances of Day/Level spells is that you have to remember to deduct 1 slot per week on them (or whatever). To solve this, instead run Shrink Item on 12 kiddie pools' worth of water at once.

[JungleChicken]

I would think a spike being un-shrunk would follow the path of least resistance. That being our of the ear not into the brain or out of a crack.

Kind of like squeezing a piece of ice out of a straw.

[Dalebert]

I would think a spike being un-shrunk would follow the path of least resistance. That being our of the ear not into the brain or out of a crack.

True. I think part of the ploy is you'd have to convince them that putting their hand firmly over the ear to block out distractions was necessary as part of the activation. :xykon:

By the same reasoning, you might need to do some cajiggering with the iron spikes for breaking locks also.


One of the annoyances of Day/Level spells is that you have to remember to deduct 1 slot per week on them (or whatever). To solve this, instead run Shrink Item on 12 kiddie pools' worth of water at once.

That's the first I'm hearing this. Where does it say that?

Also, how do you use shrink item (singular item with volume limits) on multiple items at once?

[Fouredged Sword]

He is using multiple castings. He eats all his spells for the day every X days.

[Crake]

I understand that to some reasonable extent, like that fireball doesn't directly set things on fire, but this is a physical alteration of the objective world that has normal ramifications.


The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area.

You were saying?

Also, wouldn't you need line of effect to the object, as you do for all spell effects?

[Chronos]

When everyone is sitting around the campfire and someone takes out a harmonica, you pull out a harpsichord (I can't find a copy of the Far Side cartoon). After it's time to put out the campfire, shrink it instead, so you can start it up immediately when needed. Have a few maximum-sized stone blocks that you can expand to make cover or barriers as needed. Get rid of barriers in your own path. Carry a boat with you, or a bookshelf, or a barrel of oil, or a cage.

[TheMonocleRogue]

Need to raid a village without waiting for hours to set up siege engines and battering rams? You can shrink all the siege weapons and put them in your pocket.

[Curmudgeon]

You can shrink all the siege weapons and put them in your pocket.
Maybe if you're Huge or larger, carrying siege weapons sized for Medium companions.

A heavy ballista takes up 15'x15' on the battlefield, as does a heavy mangonel (catapult). A scorpion only takes up 10'x10'. A siege tower is 15'x15'. A battering ram is 30'x10'. A light trebuchet takes up a 20'x20' space, and a heavy trebuchet takes up a 25'x25' space.

Shrink Item only decreases things by a factor of 16 in each dimension. You'd need some mighty big pockets to hold even the smallest.

[Ravens_cry]

I've never done this, but I thought it'd be fun to shrink a lake of magma or lava into the cloth form with permanency, using fly to drop it over non-fire immune foes heads. Damage from both the molten rock AND the weight.

[Abaddona]

Curmudgeon: big pockets - like for example a bag of holding?

Shrinked forest fire should provide some distraction in the times of need.

Using sovereign glue to stick shrinked big heavy boulders to someone also should be quite fun (especially if you hit this target with Ray of Enfeeblement previousy)

[Fouredged Sword]

See, this is why I have red dragons cast horde gullet and swallow a pile of magma. It works as a great sealant and can be used to kill those pesky adventurers.

[Ravens_cry]

See, this is why I have red dragons cast horde gullet and swallow a pile of magma. It works as a great sealant and can be used to kill those pesky adventurers.
And the resulting statues look lovely around the cave for that Pompeii chic. :smallamused:

[Curmudgeon]

Curmudgeon: big pockets - like for example a bag of holding?
Probably too small. The Bag is 2'x4' when flat. That means the circumference of the opening is either 2' (more likely) or 4' (unlikely). So at maximum you could put something shrunk to about 15" diameter. That wouldn't hold any trebuchets. With the opening at the narrower end, the way most sacks work, you couldn't fit any of those siege engines inside.

[Segev]

Does reducing it to a cloth-like substance allow it to be folded up smaller still? Could you fold that ballista-cloth up to fit it in your pocket?

[Ravens_cry]

Probably too small. The Bag is 2'x4' when flat. That means the circumference of the opening is either 2' (more likely) or 4' (unlikely). So at maximum you could put something shrunk to about 15" diameter. That wouldn't hold any trebuchets. With the opening at the narrower end, the way most sacks work, you couldn't fit any of those siege engines inside.

You could make it the cloth option and then roll that cloth up though.

[Talionis]

My Dirgesinger used Shrink Item to shrink corpses that he used the Gentle Repose spell on so that he could have more options on hand to reanimate.

[Necroticplague]

When a rogue in a party we were in died, we used Shrink Object on his corpse to make it easier to move around. Then, we got an idea. Cast Permanency on it. Then, when we raised him back to life in the same body, we now had a rogue that, on-command, could shrink down 4 sizes. That started as a halfling. So small, the rules didn't have it in mind!

[Rubik]

There's always Lycanthromancer's ever-useful tinfoil hat trick. Shrink several domes/cones/boxes down and wear them as hats. Layer several together so you have multiples. Tell your raven familiar to ready the command word for the topmost one in order to block barbarian charges, dragon breath weapons, medusa stares, or wizard instakill spells. And in the case of an AMF, the outermost hat will auto-expand, which allows you to Dimension Door out as needed. And since you have multiple hats, you can do this more than once as needed.

I also like to use it as a force multiplier on Fabricate spells. Shrink down what you want to Fabricate, Fabricate, and end up with 4,000x as much Fabricated product as you could before.

[Dalebert]

Seems like a lot of folks keep forgetting it's limited to 2 cu ft / lvl. A bigger problem with something the size of siege weapons is affecting them at all unless you just have a really obscene CL somehow. At CL 11, I can affect 22 cu ft. A 5 ft by 5 ft by 1 ft tall object is 25 cu ft. Those things sound gigantic.


Also, wouldn't you need line of effect to the object, as you do for all spell effects?

I don't follow. What is this pertaining to? Shrink Item is touch but it can be dismissed by a command word or tossing onto a solid surface. I imagine the dismissal requires line of effect.


One of the annoyances of Day/Level spells is that you have to remember to deduct 1 slot per week on them (or whatever). To solve this, instead run Shrink Item on 12 kiddie pools' worth of water at once.

I misunderstood. I thought you were saying something like that you couldn't re-prepare spells in that slot while the duration was still going. That would suck. My duration currently is 22 days when I extend it and I can shrink several items a day between adventures.

[unseenmage]

Shapesand is listed as a single item, and it's explicitly an alchemical item and not a Magic Item, so it could be Shrink Item-ed.

Opens up all sorts of possibilities.

[Rubik]

Seems like a lot of folks keep forgetting it's limited to 2 cu ft / lvl. A bigger problem with something the size of siege weapons is affecting them at all unless you just have a really obscene CL somehow. At CL 11, I can affect 22 cu ft. A 5 ft by 5 ft by 1 ft tall object is 25 cu ft. Those things sound gigantic.Well, they're not solid blocks. A lot of objects have a much lower cubic footage than the space they take up. Granted, I imagine most siege engines to be larger than what Shrink Item can affect at any but high levels, but still.